Remover for rags and the like for a pulp treating machine



July 19, 1960 R. B. HONEYMAN 2,945,592

REMOVER FOR RAGS AND THE LIKE FOR A PULP TREATING MACHINE Filed Dec. 1, 1958 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 iggw La 0 I r, z 0/ l L l; "f \\l u LQ INVENTOR.

ROBERT B. HONEYMAN ATTORNEY July 19, 1960 R. a. HONEYMAN REMOVER FOR RAGS AND THE. LIKE FOR A PULP TREATING MACHINE 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Dec. 1, 1958 INVENTOR. ROBERT B. HONEYIVIAN ATTORNEY July 19, 1960 R. B. HCNEYMAN REMOVER FOR RAGS AND THE LIKE FOR A PULP TREATING MACHINE Filed Dec. 1, 1958 (5 Sheets-Sheet 3 I I I III/Ill Ill g aifiza I6 n I7 mmvrox. v ROBERT a HONEYMAN BY (UL ATTORNEY ieration of the machine itself.

Patented .iu ia, taco REMOVER FOR RAGS AND THE LIKE FOR A PULP TREATING MACHINE Robert Blakeley Honeyman, Portland, 0reg., assignor to Marden Machines Company, Portland, Greg, a corporation of Oregon Filed Dec. 1, 1958, Ser. No. 777,365

4 Claims. (Cl. 210-542) V under date of May 13, l952, and entitled Machine for Treating Fibrous Material, to which reference is made. When bundles of pulp material, including particularly old paper stock, are dumped into the tank of such a machine for treatment invariably some rags, pieces of string, as well as heavier foreign particles and objects such as pieces of metal and generally referred to as tramp metal, will inadvertently be included in the material as deposited in the tank. Means have been provided for separating out and collecting the tramp metal an d'other heavy foreign particles from the pulp material in the tank, but such collecting means is not suitable for the removal of lighter articles such as rags, string and the like, which will float around in the pulp mass and, unless disposed of, will eventually require temporary shut-ting down of the machine for removal when an appreciable quantity has accumulated. 40

An object of the present invention is to provide practical and eflicient means for removing such light weight material, particularly rags and the like, from a pulp mass in the tank of such a slushing and treating machine.

A related object of the invention is to provide removing means to be used in conjunction with a pulp slushing and treating machine which can be operated as long as desired, during continuous operation of the-machine, without in any way interfering with the independent op- The manner in which thme objects and incidental advantages are attained with the rag removing device constituting the present invention will be readily understood from the following brief description with reference to the accompanying drawings.

In the drawings: 0

Fig. 1 is an elevation of a pulp treating machine showingthe rag removing device mounted in position on the machine, the top portion of the pulp tank of the machine being shown broken away for clarity;

Fig. 2 is a top plan view of the pulp treating machine of Fig. 1 with the relative position of the rag removing device on the tank indicated by broken lines;

Fig. 3 is a side elevation of the rag removing device by itself, drawn to a larger scale, with portions of the near side wall of the housing broken away;

Fig. 4 is an end elevation of the rag removing device taken from the left in Fig. 1 and thus on the line indicated at 44 in Fig. 3, being drawn to the same scale as Fig. 3;,

Fig. 5 is a fragmentary section on line 5-5 of Fig. 3 drawn to a larger scale;

Fig. 6 is a fragmentary section of line 66 of Fig. 3

drawn to a larger scale;

Fig. 7 is a fragmentary section on line 77 of Fig. 4 drawn to a larger scale;

Fig. 8 is an exploded view of one of the hook assemblies of the device, the various parts being shown in perspective and their relative positions;

Fig. 9 is a plan view of one of the hook assemblies shown with portions of the carrying chains and one of the guiding rails, being similar in part to Fig. 5 but drawn to a larger scale, and also indicating in broken lines the position of the hook assembly when the oppositely-positioned guide rail 37 (shown in Fig. 7) is encountered; and

Fig. 10 is.a sectional elevation corresponding to line 1010 of Fig. 9.

In Figs. 1 and 2 the tank of a pulp-treating machine (such as that described in US. Patent No. 2,596,586 above mentioned) is indicated at 10, although it is to be understood that the present invention may be employed with other pulp treating machines of various designs. A rotor assembly, indicated in general by the reference 11 is mounted in one side of the tank. The top of the tank 10 is open so as to enable paper stock, pulp sheets, etc., to be dumped into the tank for slushing and for fiber treatment. The rag removing device, indicated in its entirety by the reference character 12, ismounted on top of the tank at one side, and that portion of the top rim of the tank where the rag removing device is' mounted is preferably given a partial rectangular contour to conform to the base of the housing of the rag removing device.

This rag removing device includes a housing consisting of a pair of identical side walls 13, one of which is shown fully in Figs. 1 and 3, the two spaced side walls having structural ribs or angle iron members and side plates, and the two side walls being held in spaced parallel position by suitable cross ribs (not shown). The housing is secured in any suitable manner (not shown) to that portion of the top of the tank 10 on which the housing for the rag removing device is mounted. In Fig. 1 the top of the tank 10 is shown extending up through an opening in a floor or platform 14, and a cart 15 is moved into position beneath the discharging end of the rag removing device to receive the rags and other material removed from the tank by the device.

The rag removing device consists mainly of a plurality of hook assemblies carried on a pair of identical endless chains 16 and 17 (Figs. 3 and 4), which move in unison in the direction indicated by the arrows in Fig.3, passing the. pairs of sprockets, for example the sprocket-wheels 19, are adjustably mounted so as to enable the chains to be tightened if chain wear and stretching causes ex- Since the hook assemblies mounted on the endless chains 16 and 17 are similar it will sufiice to describe one of these assemblies with particular reference to Figs. 8 and 10. The assembly includes a rag-catching hook 23 having an elongated shank. A U-shaped loop 24 is secured to the upper end of the hook shank, for example by welding. The loop 24 is held in an eye 25 formed on the bottom of a swivel pin 26, the pin 26 being formed with a bottom shoulder flange 26. Thus the book 23 has in etfect a universal joint connection with its supporting swivel pin 26 but is not rotatable independently of the swivel pin.

The swivel pin 26 extendsthrough a central aperture and boss in a cross bar 27 in which the swivel pin is rotatably supported. A control arm 28 is secured on the swivel pin 26 above the cross bar 27 by suitable means, such as the pin 29 and the cotter keys 29 (Fig. 8). The control arm 28 thus prevents the swivel pin, and therewith the hook 23, from becoming detached from their supporting cross bar 27. The outer end of the control arm 28 has an upstanding lug 30 adapted to engage guiding tracks, as later explained, and in this way to cause the swivel pin, and therewith the hook 23, to turn from time to time. For a reason which will be apparent later, the control arm 28 is so secured to the swivel pin 26 that the center line of the control arm will form an acute angle with the plane of the hook, this angularity in the case of the hook assemblies in the particular device as illustrated being approximately 37 /2 (see Fig. 9). The top face of the cross bar 27, or the face engaged by the control arm 28, is formed with a pair of-limit stops, 31 and 32 on opposite sides of the swivel pin 26 for the purpose of limiting the movement of the control arm 28 and thus limiting the rotation of the swivel pin and hook 23. The reason for this will also be apparent presently.

The cross bar 27 has its ends secured to the two endless chains 16 and 17 respectively in any suitable manner so that it will travel along with the chains and will always be positioned at right angles to the chains. For example, the cross bar may be secured to the chains 16 and 17 by pairs of pins 33 (Fig. 9).

The tank during the operation of the pulp slushing and treating machine will normally be kept filled with water and the fibrous pulp material up to some such level as indicated by the broken line Y in Fig. 1, and thus the hooks 23, upon reaching the lowest point in their course, will extend down into the material in the tank. The operation of the rotor 11 will set up definite paths of circulation of the materials in.the tank, such paths being indicated in part in Fig. 1. As a result, a portion of thematerial in the tank thrown out or circulated and recirculated by the rotor will be impinged against each successive hook 23 as the hooks reach their lowest position, and rags and string in the circulating material in the tank will catch on the hooks 23 upon coming in contact with the hooks with the result that such undesired material will be lifted out of the tank by the travelling hooks. It has been found that the rags and other material will catch on the hooks more readily when the hooks are positioned with their planes substantially parallel to the direction of travel of the rags, etc., at the moment of impact. For this reason, since the rag removing device as a whole is arranged at angularity with the axis of a rotor of the pulp treating machine, as illustrated in Fig. 2, the hooks, as they approach the bottom of their course, are made to turn into a position of parallelism with respect to their line of stock travel so as to be positioned most effectively for catching the rags, etc., when the latter are impinged against the hooks. Thus, as shown best in Fig. 3, when the hooks 23 approach the lowest point in their course they are turned into the desired position of angularity with respect to their direction of travel, but, as these hooks move up -out of the tank they are again turned back substantially into parallelism with their direction of travel in order that the rags or other material caught on the hooks will drop oif or can be removed from the hooks as the hooks reach the upper left-hand end of their course (as viewed in Fig. 3). The universal joint connection for the hooks permits the hooks to hang into the stock in desired position for catching rags, etc., but at the same time such joint connection enables the hooks to be pushed aside by unbroken bales or large masses of unbroken paper stock and thus prevents damage to the hook assemblies under such conditions.

The best location for'the rag removing device with respect to the stock tank can be determined by ascertaining the location of the area in the upper surface of the stock through which the rags most frequently pass under the circulation produced by the rotor. This may vary with tanks of different shapes and tanks having the rotor differently located. The actual angle through which the hooks are turned or rotated should be adjusted with respect to the direction of actual flow of the material from the rotor past the hooks. Such adjustment can easily be made for various tank designs by proper location of the stops 31 and 32. The particular angularity described is given as an illustration and probable average. The partial rotating of the hooks alternately into and out of parallelism with their direction of travel is accomplished by means of two guide rails 35 and 37 which engage the upstanding guide lugs 30 on the control arms 28 of the hooks when the lugs 30 come into contact with the guide rails.

Referring to Figs. 3, 4, 5 and 9, as each hook moves upwardly and towards the left (as viewed in Fig. 3), after leaving the tank, the upstanding guide lug 30 on the control arm 28 for the hook is engaged by a guide rail 35 causes the control arm 28 to be rotated clockwise (as viewed in Fig. 5) to such extent (for example 75") as to bring the hook 23 into parallelism with the two chains 16 and 17 and the direction of travel of the book. As the hook in this position reaches the end of its travel to the left (Fig. 3) any material carried on the hook will then slide off the hook as the hook is moved out of vertical position by the travel of the supporting cross bar for the hook over the end sprockets 18. A rest support 36 is mounted on the pair of chains 16 and 17 a short distance behind each hook. Each rest support 36, as shown best in Fig. 5, consists of a cross bar base which extends between and is attached to the two chains 16 and 17 and supports a V-shaped saddle or rest 36.

When each hook is moved around the pair of end sprockets 18 (Fig. 3) the hook being in a plane parallel to the vertical planes of the two chains, will be engaged by its rest support 36 and will continue to be held on its rest support as the hook then moves from left to right until the hook passes over the sprockets 19 and moves downwardly and inwardly towards the top of the tank. At this point the hook will swing into downwardly-extending substantially vertical position as illustrated. The hook however will still be in a plane parallel to the vertical planes of the two chains. As the hook descends in this position its guide lug 30 now encounters the other guide rail (Figs. 3 and 4) which guide rail extends down and around the bottom course of the chains and up on the other side. The engagement of the assass n guide lug 3%) with this other guide rail 37 causes a partial rotation of the hook so as to bring it into angularity with respect to the direction of travel (as indicated also by the broken lines in the diagrammatic illustration in Fig. 9), this causing the hook to be arranged in the desired position, or parallel with respectt o the direction of flow of that portion oft he circulating tank materialw hich encounters the hook. The rail 37 holds the hook in this position until the hook has passed upwardly and out of the tank. The substantially universal joint connection between the hook shank and its swivel pin 26 enables the desired partial rotation of the hook to take place regardless of the position of the hook.

As a further means of insuring that any rag, etc., lifted by the hook from the tank will then be completely removed from the hook as the hook passes around the upper end sprockets 18, the hook is caused to pass between a pair of strippers 38 and 39 (Figs. 4 and 5), and these bear against the opposite sides of the hook shank and cause any remaining fragments of material on the hook to be pulled off from the hook as the hook swings upwardly and away from the strippers. Furthermore preferably a shower of water from a water pipe and nozzle, indicated at 40 in Fig. 3, causes each hook to be washed as it leaves the strippers 38 and 39. The material discharged from the hooks drops down into a suitable cart (Fig. l) or other removable receptacle, such cart or receptacle having a perforated or screen bottom forvdrainage of entrained water.

It would of course be possible to have various minor modifications in this rag removing device made without departing from the principle of the invention. However, the preferred form of the device, including the construction and arrangement of the hook assemblies as well as the other parts of the device, is considered to be that which has been illustrated and described, althrough it is not intended that the invention should be imited except as the claims provide.

1 claim:

1. In a pulp treating machine having a tank and a rotor producing circulation of pulp material in said tank, removing means for rags and the like, said removing means including a driven endless conveyor located in a substantially vertical plane extending down into said tank, a series of hooks carried by said conveyor and moved successively down into said tank into the path of the material circulating in said tank and then up out of said tank, said plane of said conveyor being arranged out of parallelism with the direction of flow of said ma terial in said tank, a swivel support member for each or said hooks on said conveyor, each hook having a shank attached at its end to said swivel support member by a substantially universal joint, means including a stationary positioning element for imparting a partial rotation of each swivel support member and therewith to the attached hook shank as the swivel support member approaches the bottom of its course into said tank, said rotation imparting means so arranged as to turn the hook into parallelism with said direction of flow of said material in said tank, and related means including a further stationary positioning element for imparting reverse partial rotation of each swivel support member and attached hook shank as the swivel support member moves upwardly from said tank, said latter mentioned rotation imparting means so arranged as to turn the hook into parallelism with said plane of said conveyor.

In a pulp treating machine having a tank open at the top and a rotor producing circulation of pulp material in said tank, removing means for rags and the like, said removing means comprising a driven endless conveyor located in a substantially vertical plane mounted above said tank and extending down into said tank, a series of hooks carried by said conveyor and moved successively down into said tank into the path of the material circulating in said tank and then up out of said tank, said plane of said conveyor being arranged out of parallelism with the direction of flow of said material in said tank, a swivel support member for each of said hooks on said conveyor, each hook having a shank attached at its end to said swivel support member by a substantially universal joint, rest supports on said conveyor for the free ends of said hooks when said free ends bear against said conveyor, means including a stationary positioning element for imparting a partial rotation to each swivel support member and therewith to the attached hook shank as the swivel support, member approaches the bottom of its course into said tank, said rotation imparting means so arranged as to turn the hook into parallelism with said direction of flow of said material in said tank, related means including a further stationary positioning element for imparting reverse partial rotation of each swivel support member and attached hook shank as the swivel support member moves upwardly from said tank, said latter mentioned rotation imparting means so arranged as to turn said hook into parallelism with said plane of said conveyor, means for preventing excessive rotation of said hooks in either direction, and a pair of stationary strippers located beyond said second arm engaging means along the course of said conveyor for removing material from said hooks as said hooks pass between said strippers.

3. In a pulp treating machine having a tank open at the top and a rotor producing circulation of' pulp material in said tank, removing means for rags and the like, said removing means comprising a driven endless conveyor located in a substantially vertical plane mounted above said tank and extending down into said tank, a series of hooks carried by said conveyor and moved successively down into said tank into the path of the material circulating in said tank and then up out of said tank, said plane of said conveyor being arranged out of parallelism with the direction of flow of said material in said tank, a swivel pin for each of said hooks on said conveyor, each hook having a shank attached at its end to said swivel pin by a substantially universal joint, an arm on each swivel pin, stationary arm engaging means adjacent said conveyor near the bottom of the course of said conveyor for imparting partial rotation to each swivel pin and therewith to the attached hook shank as the swivel pin approaches said bottom of said conveyor course, said arm engaging means so arranged as to turn the hook into parallelism with said direction of flow of said material in said tank, a similar second stationary arm engaging means adjacent said conveyor along the upward course of said conveyor above said tank for imparting partial rotation to each swivel pin and attached to hook shank, said second arm engaging means so arranged as to turn said hook into parallelism with said plane of said conveyor, and means for preventing excessive rotation of said hooks by either of said arm engaging means. I

4. In a pulp treating machine having a tank open at the top and a rotor producing circulation of pulp material in said tank, removing means for rags and the like, said removing means consisting of a driven endless conveyor located in a substantially vertical plane mounted above said tank and extending down into said tank, a series of hooks carried by said conveyor and moved successively down into said tank into the path of the material circulating in said tank and then up out of said tank, said plane of said conveyor being arranged out of parallelism with the direction of flow of said material in said tank, a swivel support pin for each of said hooks on said conveyor, each hook having a shank attached at its end to said swivel support pin by a substantially uni versal joint, rest supports on said conveyor for the free ends of said hooks when said free ends bear against said conveyor, an arm on each swivel pin, stationary arm engaging means adjacent said conveyor near the bottom of the course of said conveyor for imparting partial rotation to each swivel pin and therewith to the attached hook shank as the swivel pin approaches said bottom of said conveyor course, said arm engaging means so arranged as to turn the hook into parallelism withv said direction of flow of said material in said tank, a second stationary arm engaging means adjacent said conveyor along the upward course of said conveyor above said tank for imparting partial rotation to each swivel pin and attached hook shank, said second arm engaging means so arranged as to turn said hook into parallelism with said plane of said conveyor, said arms adjustably mounted on said swivel pins, and stationary means located beyond said second arm engaging means along the course of said conveyor for aiding in removing material from said hooks.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,634,863 Hauer A rTfiTwss 10 2,691,324 De Pan Oct. 12, 1954 FOREIGN PATENTS 465,002 Great Britain Apr. 29, 1937 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE CERTIFICATE OF CORRECTION Patent NO.a 2,945,592 July 19, 196 0 Robert Blakeley Honeyman ertified that error appears in the above it is hereby 0 tion and that the said Letters numbered patent requiring correc Patent should read as corrected below.

In the grant. lines 2 and 12, and in the heading to the printed specification, line 5, name of assignee, for "Marden Machines Company" read Morden Machines Company -0 Signed and sealed this 20th day of December 1960.,

(SEAL) Attest:

KARL Ha AXLINE R E- C WATSON Attesting Officer commlssloner of Patents 

